


Borderline

by iloveitblue



Series: Prompts [190]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 11:38:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3486887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveitblue/pseuds/iloveitblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Tony and Bruce finds out about Clint's genius</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borderline

Clint liked to pretend he was dumb. 

Well, maybe dumb isn’t really the word for it. He liked to pretend he didn’t know much aside from pulling a bowstring and killing targets. 

Early on in life, he’d learned that people had expectations. These expectations were supposed to be met and one-upped or you’d face the dreaded disappointed frown and a stern finger wagging. That only applied when you’re a child of course, the repercussions of not meeting expectations when you’re an adult are much greater. 

With that, he learned to set people’s expectations low. Low enough so that you don’t have to try to achieve them but high enough so they don’t talk to you like you don’t know the alphabet.

But really, Clint Barton is a really smart cookie. Of course he is. You don’t think he just pulls the bowstring and hope it hits, do you? No. That requires a keen eye and a really quick computation of the weight of the arrow, the distance of the target, the wind velocity and the force it needs to hit the mark. 

He might not have a degree or a PhD or even a diploma but that doesn’t mean he’s uneducated. Clint knows how to read and write. He’s fostered his skills and read about things. Different things that fascinated him. 

In his travels from the circus to the mercenary gig to SHIELD, he’s read a lot of books from local libraries. It’s not what you would call ‘proper’ education but knowledge is knowledge, and Clint, well he’s stocked up a lot of it over time.

But of course nobody knows this. 

He doesn’t tell anybody that he knows what the Bretton Woods System is. He doesn’t correct the formula that that one scientist down in R&D had been going on and on about saying it was perfect - Clint gave whatever they were inventing two days before it exploded in their face. He doesn’t even let the act go when faced with Nicholas Fury and Maria Hill - even though they both suspect it already when they recruited him.

The only person who knew about his genius was his husband. 

Phil didn’t doubt it for even a second but when you’re dealing with someone like Clint Barton - impenetrable walls and low self-esteem - you tend not to force it out of the man when you want them to trust you. 

So Phil does the logical thing to do and waits. He waits and he waits until slowly, Clint opened up to him. About his past, about his nightmares, about his genius. Clint tells him about the cold winter nights spent in the warm company of books while he hid in the library. He tells Phil about the silly scientist down in R&D who blew up thousands of dollars worth of SHIELD’s money because he carried the one instead of the 7. He tells Phil about the tesseract, about what he thinks it does and what its capable of. He turns out right because of course he does.

Phil sometimes curses him for being so smart. 

—-

Phil trudges into the Avengers kitchen where Tony and Bruce are hunched over the counter discussing something science-y - Phil is not responsible of these adult sized toddlers until he’s had his second cup of coffee, thank you - so he ignores them and heads straight to the coffee machine. 

In the time it takes him to push all of the necessary buttons in Stark’s state-of-the-art yet complicated coffee machine Clint makes his way behind him to wrap his arms around Phil’s waist and kiss the nook of his neck in exchange of a ‘Good Morning’. Phil hums both at the aroma of the coffee and Clint’s presence.

"We’ve talked about this. No PDA." Tony says, not really looking up. "You’re only making all of us feel terrible because we have no one in our lives to cuddle with in the morning."

Clint silently huffed a laugh and kissed Phil’s neck one more time before letting go and raising his arms in mock surrender. “There. Happy?”

"Thank you." Tony continues to frown at the whiteboard they had laid out in front of them. Bruce massages the bridge of his nose and blinks hard.

Clint sidles up in between them to look at the thing and lets out a soft ‘Huh.’

"What?" Bruce asks.

"Nothing. Isn’t that- no, never mind." Clint back tracks.

"Aw, come on bird brain. We’ve been staring at this stupid board trying to figure out what’s wrong." Tony runs a hand through his hair, obviously annoyed.

"We’re trying to design an experiment to look for the annihilation spectrum resulting from dark matter collisions in space."

"Wait. I got it." Tony said frantically. "I got it!" He took the whiteboard marker and started squiggling symbols Phil couldn’t really be bothered with right now.

"No. That weight is much too low from what you expect from that collision. Do you understand we’re talking about dark matter colliding in outer space?" Bruce interjected.

"Of course I understand! And who are you to tell me about outer space?"

"I’ve studied it longer, Tony. Whereas you started last night."

"Well, I’ve actually been to space!"

While the argument continued to spiral into who knows what, Clint picked up the marker and erased Tony’s work, replacing it with more symbols Phil didn’t really care about for now.

"-mean doo doo!" Tony told Bruce. 

Bruce sighed and noticed only then what Clint was doing. “What- What are you doing, Clint?”

"I’m fixing your work."

"Fixing our work?" Tony said with a tone of disbelief. "What could you possibly- Oh my God."

Phil smirked quietly into his coffee cup. Clint started to explain his work, the two scientists looking over his shoulder. “See, here’s where you’re supposed to derive the mass of the dark matter-“

Bruce cut in. “No, no, no. You’ve misstated the atomic weight of the target-“ 

"Let me finish. You’re supposed to derive the mass of the dark matter particle here and when-" Clint sighed.

Phil groaned. “It’s too early, Clint! Why are you doing the genius thing so early in the morning?”

Clint grinned at him in retaliation. “Your fault for marrying me.”

"Shush agent, the geniuses are working now." Tony waved a hand at Phil. Bruce remained transfixed by Clint’s work.

Phil rolled his eyes at all of them and left the kitchen before he lost any more brain cells trying to understand what the hell they were trying to write on that stupid board.

**Author's Note:**

> [Here on tumblr](http://promptmephlint.tumblr.com/post/112796021161/my-room-is-clean-now-yaaaaay-it-was-either-that)


End file.
